OK, the mailing list seems to be working, and we have
11 participants representing 8 W3C member organizations.
I expect more will join presently, but that's enough
to get started. Our charter says...
"In the first phase, the WG will evaluate requirements ..."
-- http://www.w3.org/2003/12/swa/dawg-charter
Let's start with use cases. What's a use case? In some sense,
we get to decide that together. But there is a fair amount
of precedent, and we shorten the distance to our
readership if we harmonize with the existing usage of the
term.
Surfing for a few minutes yielded the following definition,
which appeals to me:
"A use case describes the use of a system from start to finish. Use
cases focus attention on aspects of a system useful to people outside of
the system itself. [...]
At the end of a use case value has been provided to the user who
initiated it. A use case captures a requirement the user places on the
system."
-- http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?UseCase
see also: User Story, which is a more constrained term
from Extreme Programming...
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?UserStory
The ideal use cases will
-- command consensus of this Working Group
as a description of a problem we intend
to solve (or: solve a part of)
-- clarify one or more requitements
-- still be relevant when we're at last call,
deciding whether we think the spec is done
-- engage potential users of our technology
and convince some of them to closely
review our spec
-- be clear and engaging enough to
get picked up by journalists and copied
into trade press stories
Let's try to do brainstorming on use cases in email
so that by our late-April face to face meeting, we
can be discussing them in substance: clarifying them,
selecting a few to write up nicely, starting to get
a handle on the words we're using to capture requirements,
and the like.
--
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
see you at the WWW2004 in NY 17-22 May?